Google invented a new way to teach kids how to code using blocks

Children learn through playing and interacting with one another, with everything around them. Google is tapping into the natural ways children learn by making code physical — something they can touch and manipulate collectively rather than a string of code on a screen to be worked with in issolation.

Project Bloks, the initiative behind making physical code, is part of a research partnership between Google, a Stanford University professor and design firm Ideo, the search engine’s research arm announced in a blog post Monday.

So far, demonstrations include sending signals over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi from a string of assembled bloks to control the movement of a nearby toy robot or producing music. Here’s what it looks like:

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The "brain board", a Raspberry Pi Zero through which all signals travel, serves as the head of operations.

The "pucks" are the physical representations of a single piece of code.

The "pucks" communicate instructions such as "go forward", "turn left" or a direction to repeat the previous command, back to the "brain board."

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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